Grant funds Census help for senior

Andrew D. Brosig
Posted 9/23/20

The Niobrara County Senior Center wanted to make sure everyone stood up and was counted.

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Grant funds Census help for senior

Posted

NIOBRARA COUNTY – The Niobrara County Senior Center wanted to make sure everyone stood up and was counted.

Working with a $1,000 grant from the LOR Foundation, NCSC staff invited area seniors in recently to help them fill out their 2020 Census registrations. With state totals hovering around the 50% mark in early September, it was important to make sure as many Niobrara County residents were counted as possible, said Senior Center Director Mary Larson.

“Our Census (count) is low, as far as the percentage registering with the Census in Wyoming,” Larson said. Registering “helps with our numbers, so it also helps with federal funding for places, like our Senior Center.”

The LOR Foundation, with offices in Lander and Taos County, N.M., works in rural communities in the Mountain West “to enhance livability and prosperity while preserving the character that makes each community unique,” according to the “About” section on its website, lorfoundation.org.

Beginning Aug. 31, the foundation provided $100,000 in grants to boost the number of people who responded to the Census. NCSC received one of those $1,000 “Instagrants,” designed to help with registration efforts through everything from buying supplies and equipment, pay for translation services or simply letting people know they should be counted.

The deadline to register with the 2020 Census is Sept. 30. 

Population numbers, as recorded in the decennial Census, are used to allocate federal funds for everything from schools to highway improvements. And the Senior Center in Lusk gets federal funding for programs and meals as well, based on the local population, Larson said. 

“It’s very important,” Larson said. “The number of our seniors is going to matter how much money we get from federal funding, when we go to apply for grants.

“I suppose 50 percent of our funding, those numbers would impact.”